


Meeting Oracle [Kaylor]

by paladin13



Category: Fashion Model RPF, Karlie Kloss - Fandom, Kaylor - Fandom, Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, character in a wheelchair
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-17 00:45:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13647876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paladin13/pseuds/paladin13
Summary: The world changed in an instant for Karlie Kloss and her girlfriend Taylor Swift. While Karlie struggles to adapt, Taylor seeks something, anything, that could help her girlfriend see herself the way she sees her...





	Meeting Oracle [Kaylor]

**Author's Note:**

> I can't ever write something without angst and medical drama. Feel free to message with questions or concerns before reading.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me while beachwolf92 and I try to pull Mugged together. Here's a little something while you wait: a one-shot with the potential to become a multi-part short if the muse strikes. Love you all!

Blonde hair still tinged pink splays across the pillow where she lays. The blonde by her bedside is torn between wanting to organize it and the fear of hurting the girl in the bed. A line of neat stitching snakes across her forehead over her left eye, where her head hit the window on impact. If only that were the worst of it. She rests her hand gently on a thigh the doctors aren't sure her girlfriend will ever feel again, watery eyes once again surveying the damage. She's held tight in a prison of metal and plastic holding her still from pelvis to shoulders. A myriad of wires and tubes snake under and around the bits of the brace that will hold her spine still while it heals from surgery designed to prevent any further damage to her spinal cord. A clear plastic tube parts chapped pink lips, offering constant pressure to her punctured left lung, also surgically repaired after they put the broken ribs back where they belonged. Her left arm is encased in purple fiberglass from above her elbow to the tips of long graceful fingers, both bones broken below the elbow. Long muscular legs are undamaged, and yet, they may be the biggest casualty of the accident. All the doctors can say for sure is that the injury is 'incomplete.' She doesn't even know what that means, but supposes it's more hopeful than 'complete.' Hopes it is. Because hope is all she has, just now. They say her girlfriend will probably never walk again, may not ever regain movement or feeling below the site of her injuries. Until she is allowed to wake, taken off the sedation made necessary by the breathing tube, there is no way to know for sure the severity, but what they can assess says this is going to change everything.

 

  
She wasn't allowed to be there, when her girlfriend woke up. It was just too many people, with the doctors and nurses and her girlfriend's parents. She's not...anyone. Not family, not even fiancee. The parents, they know she's more, inside, where it counts, but to the doctors and nurses, she's just...there. And she hates it. She wants to be the one to hold her girlfriend's hand and assure her that things will be okay. That they can get through this, together, because she's not going anywhere. They may not have official titles, but it's real. It seems to take hours, the process of dropping the sedation and letting her girl return to the real world, and she is certain that her girlfriend would frankly have preferred to stay wherever the sedation put her. A world where she wasn't in pain from the surgery, from the broken bones and torn skin and punctured internal organs. A world where nothing had changed and she was just taking a long nap. A world where her body still worked like it always had. That's what worried her the most. Her girlfriend has always had a strong connection to her physical body, knowing precisely where it was in space, how to move it with grace and purpose, to make beautiful lines and create art, just by the way she held herself. And now that's been severed, irreversibly, and that has to hurt, in ways she can't possibly imagine.

 

  
Her girlfriend's dad squeezed her shoulders when the group emerged. Told her "you can go in. She's...this is going to take time." She could see that, from the downcast faces that emerged. Her girlfriend is usually made of literal sunshine, and seeing her under this cloud? She knows it's not going to be easy. But she steels herself against that because none of this is about her. This is about helping the love of her life adjust to what's happened, making sure she knows that this may change almost everything she's ever known, but it doesn't change their love.

 

  
"Just go." Her girlfriend doesn't even meet her eyes, keeps hers downcast, looking at knees and feet that might as well belong to someone else.

 

  
"I'm not going anywhere."

 

  
"Please, Taylor. Just leave."

 

  
She knew this would be hard. But she didn't anticipate seeing her sunshine cry. Had never heard the soft, resigned bitterness in her tone before.

 

  
"Karlie. No. Where would I go? I don't want to be anywhere but with you." 

 

"I'm a fucking mess Taylor. You didn't sign up for this. Don't you get it? Everything we used to be, we aren't anymore. Can never be. You deserve the world. You can have any woman in the world. So go find her. Go find a woman who will make you happy. Who will give you everything I can't. Who won't need constant care, everyday, for the rest of her life..."  
  


 

"I LIKE taking care of you..." Taylor interrupts, going to sit by the bed.  
  


 

"You like making me dinner. Doing the dishes. But you have no idea what it's going to be like. Are you going to LIKE having to help me go to the bathroom? Having to bathe me and dress me and maybe change my diapers like I'm an infant? Having to help me stand with a special lift so that my bones don't turn to swiss cheese now that I can't put weight on them anymore on my own?"

 

  
"Do you understand that I love you? All of you?"

 

  
"We can't have sex anymore, Taylor. Do you get that? I can't feel ANYTHING below my belly button. Not even that. And you don't have to be stuck with a defective girlfriend. I'm broken, but you're not. So please. Get the fuck out so I can try to move on. I can't do this. Thinking you'll be here when I know that you're just going to go when it gets hard. So go now. Please."

 

  
"No." It's a single syllable, spoken with a gentle strength granted it by the fact that Taylor knows, with absolute certainty, that Karlie is wrong. She is broken, in this moment, yes. But she is not damaged beyond repair, or unworthy of love and care because of it. "Have you ever heard of kintsugi?"  
  


 

Karlie shakes her head, but for the first time raises her green eyes to meet blue. "No. Is that a kind of sushi? Are you really asking me about food right now?"  
  


 

"It's an ancient Japanese art. They take broken pottery and repair it with precious metals. It makes the damaged pottery stronger and more beautiful than the original piece. It is broken, and won't ever be the same as it was, but it is still useful and well loved. Just like you. Of course this is going to change you. How could it not? And I'm going to have to change with it. It's going to be hard, and it's going to suck, and we're not always gonna get it right. I'm gonna fuck up. You are too. But don't push me away before we've even had a chance. I love you too much to give up that easily."

 

  
"That's really a thing? Fixing broken stuff and calling it art?"  
  


 

"It is." Taylor pulls out her phone and quickly loads the page she'd found, while she waited for them to let her in this room. Photograph after photograph of cracked bowls and plates, spiderwebs of gold creating an entirely new work of art from the damaged remains.  
  


 

"They're actually kinda pretty." Karlie smiles for the first time since she woke up. Since she came to fully grasp the aftermath of the crash that brought her here. "And you can still use them?"  
  


 

"They're still as useful as ever. And stronger now, because of how they've been put back together."  
  


 

"I'm still a fucking mess."

  
"You're still MY fucking mess."  
  


 

It doesn't fix things. Taylor's speech about broken pottery is cute, and all, but it doesn't really do much to alleviate the pain Karlie feels knowing there's nothing anyone can do to fix her. They've shored up the damage, stablilized the broken bones which will heal with time. But they can't reconnect severed nerves. Can't give her back what she's lost. No amount of grueling physical therapy will make her legs obey her brain. She wants to be grateful. She knows they're doing their best. Trying to help. But all she feels is anger, and bitterness. This isn't how her life was supposed to go. This isn't who she was supposed to be.   
  


 

Taylor begging her to just TRY doesn't help. She doesn't want to try. What is the point of working so hard when it isn't going to do anything? She's shattered more than one plastic pitcher against the wall - the seated position and lack of range of motion doesn't seem to have hindered her throwing arm much. Taylor tries to make light of that. To draw attention to her strength. But most of those days end with Taylor being cursed out and Karlie crying alone in her room.  
  


 

Karlie's parents visit a lot. Her younger sisters take long weekends from college, while her older sister flies in from across the country. Friends and colleagues line up to try to part the clouds and let the sunshine show once again. The twins brought coloring books of Disney characters that visitors color in the waiting area. The vibrant pictures are plastered all over the walls of the drab hospital room, a testament to how beloved she is. They begin to creep onto the ceiling, and still. Karlie is frustrated, and angry, and has nowhere to put those emotions. She screams into her pillow when they finally leave her alone. She wonders why they keep coming back when she has nothing to offer them. Her parents, she supposes, have no choice. They're stuck with her. When they finally discharge her, it is with them she will go, because she has to go somewhere. But why does Taylor come back, day after day, just to say she loves her? She has better things to do with her time than waste it on Karlie. Why can't she see that? Why don't they all see that?  
  


 

Weeks pass. Bones knit, pain abates. Physically, Karlie is healing. Psychologically, they worry. She continues to push away those who love her. She seems to think that her worth somehow is tied to her physical body, and that with that no longer under her command, there is nothing left worth fighting for. She sits sullenly in support groups, speaking only when forced. Therapy sessions are no better, an hour of Karlie staring out the window while a neverending parade of mental health professionals try to coax her into a new frame of mind. Her participation in physical therapy is limited to the bare minimum that will keep them off her back. She's honestly not sure she wants to go home. She is enough of a burden here. Maybe they should have let her die in the accident.  
  


 

Two days before her scheduled transfer to a residential rehabilitation facility in another state, one that specializes in spinal cord injuries and has the best, most cutting edge therapy money can buy, and her best chance at any recovery of function below her injury, she awakes to something warm and wet on her face, a small fuzzy weight on her chest.   
  


 

"What the fuck Taylor?"   
  


 

"Her name is Oracle." Taylor is itching to provide the rest of her back story. That she was supposed to be a service dog when she grew up, but an unfortunate run-in with a car means the puppy will have a new job, or so Taylor hopes. As an emotional support dog for the woman she loves. If Karlie can't see that she still has so much to contribute, even now, perhaps seeing the value in this slightly damaged but still very, very precious puppy will help her to see it. But first, she has to see if her girlfriend's geeky side will come out. There is meaning to the name.  
  


 

The puppy scoots up Karlie's chest, the better to shower her ears and neck with warm, slobbery kisses that evoke a sound that is music to Taylor's ears. A laugh. She wondered sometimes if she was ever going to hear that laugh again. "Oracle, stop! That's enough!" Karlie goes to lift the dog off her chest so she can sit up and save herself from the onslaught, but instead of a fuzzy little butt, she feels...a diaper? Who would diaper a dog? And then it hits her, like a brick wall. Oracle. From the Batman comics. This dog is just like her. She turns to Taylor. "You got me a paralyzed puppy?"  
  


 

"She was supposed to grow up to be a service dog. I think she can still do that job. Just because she can't grow up to be the KIND of service dog she was supposed to be, doesn't mean she can't help people. Her foster family was horrified when she was hit. They thought no one would want her, because she was damaged. I want her. I want you. She doesn't know why her legs don't work. But she loves running around in her little wheelchair. She loves giving kisses and feeling useful. Give her a job and she's a happy girl. I told her her job today was to make you smile. How's she doing?"  
  


 

Karlie gives her a small smile. "She's doing a good job."  
  


 

The puppy doesn't fix things instantly either. But Karlie begins to smile more, those two days, than she has in nearly a month. Because Taylor is right. This small, innocent puppy just wants to do her job. She spends hours teaching her to 'come' and 'stay' and 'speak' and 'kiss' and 'high five.' When the physical therapy team comes to get her, she takes an active role in the transfer from bed to wheelchair, rather than making them do all the work. If they note the change, they say nothing, hoping that perhaps if they don't point out the difference Karlie won't revert back to her old ways. For the first time since the accident, Karlie puts forth the kind of effort in physical therapy she used to devote to her workouts. It is difficult, and uncomfortable, and she would probably have an easier time of it if she'd been working with them all along, but there is a part of her, one she thought might have died in the accident, that feels good to work her muscles again.   
  


 

When Taylor suggests she and Oracle might have a nice time going for a walk, Karlie nods. She has barely been outside in weeks, though Taylor had tried that too, wheeling her into the garden, hoping maybe it would stir something within her. But today, she's not being pushed out there with little agency of her own. Taylor is still going to push the wheelchair, Karlie's arm hasn't been healed long enough for her to have perfected her technique, even if she'd been putting the effort into it she should have, but this time, Karlie wants to go. There is something very sweet about getting to hold Oracle on her lap, the ingenious little wheelchair that lets her run around dangling from Taylor's wrist as she pushes her into the elevator. It is the first time she's voluntarily left her room since she arrived at the hospital. It feels weird, still, but she feels more confident with Oracle. Like people are looking at the adorable puppy in her lap instead of the broken and scarred ex-model in the chair.  
  


 

Oracle's "in training" vest grants her access to places most puppies couldn't go, so as they make their way out to the hospital lawn, they're stopped by families missing their own fuzzy friends, left at home. Karlie is smiled at by small children who just want to pet the doggie, and Oracle eats up the attention. People ask about the dog's wheelchair, but not Karlie's, and people barely glance at the healing gash on her forehead. It is more than Taylor had dreamed about, finding the dog through a gofundme. She just wanted to find a way to show Karlie that she still had a lot to contribute, even if she would never run a marathon, would never do her famous panther stalk down a runway again. More important than the smiles directed at the pair is the smile Karlie offers in return. It isn't the wide grin Taylor still hopes will return one day, but it is there, and genuine, and persists all the way back to Karlie's room.   
  


 

In fact, it's still there when Taylor brings her a latte the next morning to enjoy while waiting for her official discharge. She's not going home. She's actually going somewhere she's never been before, but somehow today that feels more helpful and less scary than it did before. If people can help Oracle be the good girl she is even after a catastrophic injury, maybe they really CAN help Karlie too. Her dad picked this place for her, and he has seen more than his fair share of trauma patients. He knows better than almost anyone where to send her.   
  


 

Her positive mood ends when they get to the airport. There is no easy way for Karlie to get from the tarmac inside the plane. Taylor immediately sees the problem, but there's nothing she can do about it then. The plane is too small to use a jetway, and there isn't a lift or ramp available either. All there are are the built in stairs that they've boarded together a hundred times. Stairs Karlie will never climb again. She's grateful that at least the bodyguard who scoops her up and carries her up the stairs is her favorite. But it doesn't erase how uncomfortable it makes her to need his help, or the negative emotions that flood her brain once he sets her gently in a seat by the window. She thanks him dispassionately and stares sullenly out at the gray concrete while the plane is prepared for take-off.  
  


 

Taylor knows she's upset, and also knows there probably isn't much she can do to fix things, but she also knows she has to try. She sits beside Karlie, Oracle in her lap, and reaches out a hand "Karlie, I..."  
  


 

"Don't. Touch. Me." The ice in Karlie's voice surprises Taylor. Even knowing she wasn't in a good place didn't prepare Taylor for that.  
  


 

"Okay." Taylor's response is barely above a whisper. She carefully slides the puppy into Karlie's lap, hoping maybe her one source of joy will help bring her back to a good place.  
  


 

"Just take her. Please." Karlie's voice is strained, like she's fighting back tears.   
  


 

Taylor knows how that is. She's fighting tears herself. She takes the dog and sits across the aisle, against the window herself, absently stroking silky ears, as the tears begin to fall.  
  


 

They're in the air when Karlie is finally able to pull herself out of it. When she's ready to look across the plane and see her girlfriend, tears streaking her cheeks, Oracle trying to kiss it better. Even puffy-eyed, tired and tear-stained, Taylor is the most beautiful woman she's ever seen. She wishes she could go to her. She would have, once. "Taylor? Could you?" She can't bring herself to finish the question, afraid the answer will rightfully be no. She knows she can only push Taylor away so many times before she won't come back. She wishes, so much, that she knew how to stop herself. But Taylor returns immediately to her side, swiping thumbs under her eyes to remove the smudged mascara.  
  


 

"I'm sorry." They speak in unison, each using two words to speak volumes.   
  


 

"I should have thought," Taylor begins, but Karlie interrupts.  
  


 

"Even if you had, I don't know there was an alternative. I know you. In a couple months, when we fly home, you'll have found one. But with such short notice, I doubt there was anything better. So I'm sorry. This was not your fault. It's mine. I don't...I don't know how to control it. The way my moods switch off like a light. I'm so sorry Taylor. I feel like I should be handling this by now, but I just...I still wonder sometimes what the point is." Karlie is crying again, and Taylor hates to see that, but she's also really proud of her. She knows Karlie hasn't been talking in therapy, but it sounds like maybe she's ready to talk, at least a little.  
  


 

Taylor wraps her arms around her girl and squeezes, tighter than she's been able to in a month. "Kar, if you honestly believe you should have finished grieving in a month, that's ridiculous."  
  


 

"You're not grieving?" Karlie seems genuinely confused.  
  


 

"Yeah. I thought I lost you. But I didn't. So yes, I'm celebrating. Because I still have my Karlie. You, on the other hand, woke up to a world in which you'd lost something huge. Grieving that loss is normal. I'd be worried if you weren't. But just because you lost something, doesn't mean you've lost everything. I hoped Oracle would remind you of that." At that moment, the puppy, who had been happily sleeping on the floor across the aisle, scoots up to Karlie and licks a bare ankle she can't feel.  
  


 

Karlie smiles a watery smile. "She's trying."  
  


 

Taylor puts the puppy back in Karlie's lap so she can stroke her fur and accept kisses in places she CAN feel. "How well do you actually know the Oracle story? Like, from the comics? Because I didn't really know about it until they told me they changed her name after the accident. But now I know a little, and I think it's particularly fitting."  
  


 

"I literally only know she used to be Batgirl, who was a badass in her own right, before she was shot in the back in her civilian alter ego, and then she was Oracle and got to be a superhero even though she was paralyzed. Why?"  
  


 

Taylor smiles. "Oracle's superpower, after she was paralyzed, was being supremely intelligent. She'd been known for her physical prowess as Batgirl, but she was also smart all along. Reminds me of someone I know, who once got called by President Obama 'a supermodel and a super-coder.' You know Oracle got her own spin-off series, Birds of Prey? She couldn't fight physically anymore, so she got an entire army of women together who could fight better than she ever had, and used her brain and technology to help them be the best."  
  


 

Karlie leans into her girlfriend. "You're pretty amazing, you know that?"  
  


 

Taylor kisses her forehead. "Not as amazing as you."


End file.
